Ion Minulescu | |
|---|---|
 Minulescu in 1934 | |
| Born | (1881-01-06)January 6, 1881 |
| Died | April 11, 1944(1944-04-11) (aged 63) |
| Pen name | I. M. Nirvan Koh-i-Noor |
| Occupation | poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, literary critic, journalist, civil servant |
| Nationality | Romanian |
| Period | 1904–1944 |
| Genre | lyric poetry,drama,memoir,satire |
| Literary movement | Symbolism Avant-garde Sburătorul |
Ion Minulescu (Romanian pronunciation:[iˈonminuˈlesku]; 6 January 1881 – 11 April 1944) was a Romanianavant-garde poet, novelist, short story writer, journalist, literary critic, and playwright. Often publishing his works under the pseudonymsI. M. Nirvan andKoh-i-Noor (the latter being derived from thefamous diamond), he journeyed toParis, where he was heavily influenced by the growingSymbolist movement and ParisianBohemianism. A herald ofRomania's own Symbolist movement, he had a major influence on localmodernist literature, and was among the first local poets to usefree verse.[1]
Born inBucharest to the widow Alexandrina Ciucă (the daughter of a shoemaker inSlatina, she was 20 at the time),[2] he was the posthumous child of Tudor Minulescu (a leather salesman who had died onNew Year's Eve, probably as a result of astroke).[3] Originally, Minulescu was meant to be born in Slatina, but bad weather prevented his mother from leaving the capital city.[2] Adopted by Ion Constantinescu, aRomanian Army officer who married Alexandrina Ciucă, he lived much of his childhood in Slatina and completed his primary and most of his medium studies inPitești atIon Brătianu High School.[4][5] He was a colleague ofAl. Gherghel, who would also become known as a Symbolist writer: the two edited the school magazineLuceafărul, which only published a few issues before being closed down by the headmaster.[5]
He published his first verses in 1897, while still in high school (at the time, his attempt to publish aliterary magazine was considered intolerable by his teachers).[6] He left for Bucharest later in the same year, being signed up for a private school and completing two grades in one year.[7]
Between 1900 and 1904, Minulescu studied law at theUniversity of Paris, during which period he was an avid reader ofRomantic and Symbolist literature[8] (works byGérard de Nerval,Arthur Rimbaud,Charles Baudelaire,Aloysius Bertrand,Jehan Rictus,Emil Verhaeren,Tristan Corbière,Jules Laforgue,Maurice Maeterlinck, and theComte de Lautréamont).[9]
At the time, Minulescu began exploring his talents as acauseur, engaging in long and entertaining conversations which were to consolidate his fame in Bucharest nightlife.[10] He also became close to Romanian artists present inParis —Gheorghe Petrașcu,Jean Alexandru Steriadi,Cecilia Cuțescu-Storck, andCamil Ressu, as well as to the actorsMaria Ventura andTony Bulandra.[11] Among the key moments of his life in Paris was meeting, through the intervention ofDemetrios Galanis, the poetJean Moréas — according to Minulescu, Moréas urged him to write his poetry in French.[12]
Upon his return, he was briefly employed by the Administration ofRoyal Domains inConstanța, and began cultivating relations with the local art dealerKrikor Zambaccian and the painterNicolae Dărăscu.[13] At the time, he drew attention to himself by wearing colorful Bohemian outfits,[14] which included immensefour-in-hand neckties and scarves he wrapped around his neck with a studied negligence (initially, he also grew a long red beard and wore large-brimmed hats).[15]
Minulescu began publishing verses and prose inOvid Densusianu'sVieața Nouă (a self-styled Symbolist magazine),[16] and attended the Kübler Coffeehouse andCasa Capșa,[17][18] the scene of an eclectic gathering of young poets —Alexandru Cazaban,Dimitrie Anghel,Panait Cerna,Andrei Naum,N. N. Beldiceanu,Ștefan Octavian Iosif, andIlarie Chendi among them.[19] Other cultural figures who came into contact with Minulescu during that period were the writersTudor Arghezi,Liviu Rebreanu,Eugen Lovinescu,Mihail Sorbul,Gala Galaction,Mihail Sadoveanu,Emil Gârleanu,Octavian Goga,Victor Eftimiu, andCorneliu Moldovanu, the composerAlfons Castaldi, as well as the visual artistsIosif Iser,Frederic Storck, andAlexandru Satmari.[20] Minulescu and Cazaban were to engage in a long polemic, and frequently ridiculed each other in public.[17]
Despite having been preceded byAlexandru Macedonski's circle, Minulescu's early commitment to Symbolism and his leading presence in the grouping has led to an enduring image of him as the first true Symbolist in his country.[21] This was notably disputed byGeorge Călinescu, who attributed the position toȘtefan Petică, and contended that Minulescu only adopted "Symbolist settings and ceremonials".[22]Tudor Vianu argued that Minulescu, together withAl. T. Stamatiad andN. Davidescu, represented a "Wallachian" Symbolism ("more rhetorical temperaments, displayingexoticism and a book-drivenneuroticism"),[23] as opposed to "Moldavians" such asGeorge Bacovia andDemostene Botez ("[of] more intimate natures, cultivating theminor scales of the sentiment").[23]
Minulescu and Anghel became close friends, and together translated pieces by various French Symbolists (among others —Albert Samain,Charles Guérin, andHenri de Régnier), which were published inSămănătorul (they were collected in a single volume in 1935).[24]
In 1906, Minulescu began publishing the poems that would form his highly popularRomanțe pentru mai târziu ("Songs for Later On") collection, first published in 1908 and illustrated by his lifelong friend Iser.[25] These came to the attention ofIon Luca Caragiale, who wrote back from his home inBerlin a praise of Minulescu'sÎn oraşul cu trei sute de biserici ("In the City with Three Hundred Churches"), which he called "a priceless thing".[26] According toȘerban Cioculescu, one of Caragiale's own satirical poems of the time, calledLitanie pentru sfârșitul lumii ("ALitany for the End of the World"), was directly influenced by Minulescu's work in free verse.[27]
He edited the short-lived magazinesRevista Celor L'alți (in 1908) andInsula (in 1912),[28] and, in 1911, began publishing theater reviews in magazines such asRampa.[29] Many of his other of his press contributions (notably, inViitorul) were printed under theKoh-i-Noor signature.[30] During the period, he began drawing inspiration from his numerous trips toDobruja, dedicating several of his most celebrated verses to theBlack Sea[5][31] (according to Vianu, he was "the first one inour literature to chant the sea in song").[31] This trend was to inspire his former colleagueAl. Gherghel, most of whose poetry was dedicated to marine themes.[5]
At the time, he began cultivating an original style, where the traditional lyrical format was hidden by arbitrary sectioning, which gave his poetry a rhetorical feel.[32] Minulescu was also arguably the first poet in his country to be primordially inspired by cityscapes, which, in one form or another, was to become the setting for the vast majority of his works.[33] The influentialmodernist criticEugen Lovinescu proposed that Minulescu's use of Romanian was revolutionary through its vocabulary, which broke with both the "archizing tendency ofEminescu" and the "more rural than anything language ofCoșbuc".[34] Such innovation brought Minulescu status as a major influence on younger poets, many of whom — among themDada's founderTristan Tzara — later moved towards more radical forms of modernism.[35] The latter group also includedGeorge Bacovia, himself a major Symbolist poet.[36]
His language was vivacious and abrupt,[37] owing much to the inspiration Minulescu sought inromanzas (giving some of his lyrics an overtlysentimental and occasionallyburlesque character).[38] This last characteristic of his work was the target of criticism from Lovinescu, who argued that popularity and apparent superficiality had taken a toll on the overall artistic value,[39] and of having discarded traditional Symbolistelitism while continuing to side with the movement.[40] Overall, Lovinescu continued to attribute the poet the merits "of having been the herald of the Symbolist movement and, more or less, of having absorbed it".[41]
Other of Minulescu's contemporaries, among them Davidescu, argued that the popular appeal of his poetry (which they referred to asMinulescianism), was turning into mere fashion.[21] Speaking of another side to this trend, Vianu evidenced that, from as early as his debut novel, Minulescu had become the source of "an industry of Minulescianparody";[42] the writerVictor Eftimiu recalled that his first successful writing had been a piece which mocked Minulescu's poemRomanța celor trei romanțe ("The Romance of the Three Romances"), and was titledRomanța celor trei sarmale ("The Romance of the ThreeSarmale").[43]
Minulescu married the poetClaudia Millian, whom he had met at amasquerade ball in 1910, on 11 April 1914;[44] she later gave birth to a daughter,Mioara Minulescu (who was to become a well-known artist).[45]
Before and after the outbreak ofWorld War I, the poet began attending theGermanophile society formed around the controversial political activistAlexandru Bogdan-Pitești (meeting regularly on Știrbey-Vodă Street, near theCișmigiu Gardens); the sessions were also attended by, among others,N. D. Cocea,Tudor Arghezi andGala Galaction.[20] The Minulescu family fled toIași after theCentral Powersoccupied Bucharest.[46] It was there that he met with the young poetBarbu Fundoianu (futureBenjamin Fondane), whose writing he gave support to, and whom he got acquainted with Symbolist poetry by through the means of his personal library — Fundoianu later expressed his gratitude to Minulescu by dedicating him some of his best-known early poems.[47]
After 1919, he was a regular contributor to Lovinescu'sSburătorul. His pre-World War I poetry became, as he himself admitted, a real commercial success only during the 1920s, when "[Romanțe pentru mai târziu] ran through four consecutive editions";[48] his reputation as a dramatist was established in 1921, when two of his plays were included in theNational Theatre Bucharest's season.[45] Minulescu was head of the Art Direction inside theMinistry of Arts and Religious Cults in 1922, an office he held until 1940. For a short while during the 1930s, he was also chairman of the National Theatre.[49]
WithKrikor Zambaccian,Ștefan Dimitrescu,Nicolae Tonitza,Oscar Han andJean Alexandru Steriadi, he was present at the major 1925 exhibit showcasing the work of painterTheodor Pallady.[50] By then, he had come to give his endorsement toabstract art, which he promoted in his capacity as head of the official Art Salon.[50] Zambaccian later recounted that Minulescu was the object of a 1927 farce played by the figurative artistJean Cosmovici — the latter protested againstmodern art by sending the Salon jury a work which Zambaccian called "a painting without any purpose or quality", and signing itPopa Kely; after the piece was received and exhibited, Cosmovici publicized his story in the press, leaving Minulescu in an embarrassing position.[50]
In 1924, he issued hisRoșu, galben și albastru ("Red, Yellow and Blue") — a novel andpolitical satire named after the colours of theRomanian flag), it provided a personal chronicle of the war.[51] The book was to prove very successful after first being published in serial byViața Românească.[52] According toViața Românească's Octav Botez,Roșu, galben și albastru also won acclaim from political figures of the day, and was "admired by one of the most subtle of the Romanian critics."[51] Botez admired the liveliness and bizarre images offered by Minulescu's text, but criticized it for its "cynicism and indecency", as well as for its "deplorable spiritual void."[51]
After a long period of concentrating on his theatrical work, Minulescu returned to poetry in 1928, withSpovedanii ("Confessions" — later included in hisStrofe pentru toată lumea, "Verses for Everyone").[29] He also published an autobiographical novel,Corigent la limba română (Flunking in Romanian; the title was an ironic reference to the fact that, during his years in high school, his Romanian-language skills had been considered to be below standard). The book scandalized sections of the public opinion, because it minutely depicted the haphazard erotic experiences of an adolescent, and was criticized by Octav Botez for being "monotonous" and "trivial".[53] Nevertheless, critics considered it interesting for the insight it gave into literary disputes of the early 20th century, as well as for its sarcastic comments on the traditionalist figures of the period.[53] Also in 1928, Ion Minulescu was awarded the National Poetry Prize.[54]
Minulescu's late works were mostly definitive collections of his earlier poetry and prose.[55] In his very last poems, he was moving away from the exuberant forms of Symbolism, adopting instead an intimate tone.[56] He died from aheart attack duringWorld War II, as Bucharest was the target of alarge-scale Allied bombing,[57] and was buried inBellu cemetery.[58]
